I’ve run around like a crazy person in Mexico City this a.m., with a gazillion impressions (it’s All Souls Day, and everyone is celebrating and dancing and eating and in costume), and 185 photos, but I’ll just put up some fudz and a few other things for now.
Breakfast was suggested by a Mexican reader here, at the famous El Cardenal restaurant just down the street from my hotel (click all photos to enlarge):
First course, Mexican hot chocolate and a pan dulce, with a bowl of nata (the skin on top of boiled milk) on the side.
The nata is spread on top of the sweet bread and eaten with hot chocolate; it’s DECADENT.
After that, huevos rancheros (fried) with tortillas, fresh cheese, and refried beans. Excellent!
Lunch from a stall in the plaza: a crunchy blue corn thingie with refried beans, fresh cheese, chili, nopales (prickly pear cactus) salsa, and coriander on top.
And on the side (I’ll post more on this later): a visit to Diego Rivera’s murals in the Governor’s Palace (they’re all over this part of the city, and I’ll see more on Sunday). Here’s a bit showing the Spanish torturing the natives and buying them as slaves. The blue-eyed baby is suppose to represent intermarriage between Spanish and the locals:
The plaza is filled with giant papier maché figures of monsters, constructed for the Day of the Dead:
I have no idea what that blue corn thingie is, but the meal as a whole sure looks most enticing.
Is the corn crunchy, chewy, soft, some combination…?
b&
Crunchy. I’ve added that.
Looks like a tostada.
Not quite — at least, not in the traditional sense. A tostada would normally be a traditional rolled and baked corn tortilla that’s then deep-fried…with its ragged edges, the bread above doesn’t appear to have been made that way.
Below, Paul Snyder suggests it might be a huarache, but this looks too thin for that….
b&
I love that dragon.
OMG all of that food looks fantastic and so excitingly different! I am so jealous.
The food looks good Jerry. I also like the Diego Rivera art.
My only problem would be that I loathe coriander/cilantro. But it all looks fascinating otherwise.
Just as an aside, those paper mache monster are not really related to the day of the dead,they are a more recent cultural phenomenom called “alebrijes”
More info at wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alebrije
Thank you. Wonderful.
Judging by the look of it, the blue corn thingie is likely a huarache. They’re delicious and called that because of the resemblance in appearance to a sandal.
It looks delish, but how do you have room for the blue corn thingie when you’ve already eaten a breakfast the size of your head?
Here in NM, that is called a tostada compuesta. Sometimes the tortilla is friend into a cup shape, but most often it is served flat the way yours was. L
Thanks for the name of the dish. I’ve looked up recipes for it, but the blue corn one that Dr. C had looks the best! I’ll have to find some of that blue cornmeal or crush up some blue corn tortilla chips.
Blue corn masa is sold in every grocery store in NM. I’m sure you could find some online. L
Thanks, good idea!
Looks like a huarache. Mmm, cilantro. . .
Not to be a wet blanket, but remember not to eat anything raw that you can’t peel.
I can see nopales in that huarache. Also, the pan dulce you ate is “pan de muerto” made only in this season.
Portugal and Mexico have been my favourite trips. The zocalo of Mexico city has such a heavy historical feeling… I wasn’t suprized to learn that the cathedral was built on an ancient aztec temple. But nothing beats Teotiuahclan and its death avenue. The pyramid of death is a must see. 30 minutes of bus from Mexico city…
El pan dulce parece riquisimo. ¡Qué tenga un buen viaje!
Ahem! No accent on “que” in that context (conjunction, not demonstrative), Derek.
Thanks!
Mmmmm. Huevos rancheros…
Can you stand another correction? What you didn’t have on your compuesta was chile, not chili.
I thought blue eyes were recessive?
I want one day to travel to Mexico Mexico to see the historical sites, but I am scared of the cartels.
Also Mexico is a highly religious country, for those don’t knowing it. When Spaniards came to conquere the Indians, Indians had a